CENTER OF MILITARY HISTORY (CMH) UNITED STATES ARMY

The following 24 books were all downloaded from Center of Military History (CMH) at www.history.army.mil

FOREWORD

Military historians and scholars of operational art have tended to neglect the role
played by the American Expeditionary Forces in World War 1. Although the Army organized
a historical office in 1918 to prepare a multivolume history of the war, budget
restraints and other considerations frustrated Chief of Staff Thsker H. Bliss' intention to
"record the things that were well done, for future imitation ... , [and] the errors as
shown by experience, for future avoidance." The momentous events of succeeding decades
only strengthened this tendency to overlook our Army's role in the fields of France
in 1918. This neglect, although understandable, is unfortunate: World War I posed
unique challenges to American strategists, tacticians, and logisticians-challenges they
met in ways that could provide today's military student with special insights into the
profession of arms.

To encourage further research in the history of World War I and to fill a gap in the
Army's historical documentation of that conflict, the Center of Military History has created
a World War I series of publications consisting of new monographs and reprints.
Complementing our newly published facsimile reprint Order of Battle of the United
States Land Forces in the World War, we are reprinting this seventeen-volume compilation
of selected AEF records along with a new introduction by David F. TI-ask. Gathered
by Army historians during the interwar years, this massive collection in no way represents
an exhaustive record of the Army's months in France, but it is certainly worthy of
serious consideration and thoughtful review by students of military history and strategy
and will serve as a useful jumping off point for any earnest scholarship on the war.

There is a certain poignancy connected with the publication of this collection in the
seventieth anniversary year of "the war to end all wars." Later this summer veterans of
that war will gather together, perhaps for the last time, to discuss the history of the
American Expeditionary Forces and to reminisce about their service. To them especially,
but to all five million Americans who served in World War I, we dedicate this
scholarly undertaking.